FSA EMAS

Description

iWorks is one of three vendors who holds an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract with the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) to provide Enterprise Middleware Architecture and Services (EMAS) support to FSA. FSA EMAS is a contract vehicle supporting FSA’s Next Gen FSA initiative. This initiative aims to modernize FSA’s technical and operational architecture to improve operational flexibility, enhance cost and operational efficiencies, and generate better outcomes for customers and taxpayers. The EMAS contract ordering period spans from September 2019 – September 2029, with a $100M maximum aggregate ceiling.

Scope

Service areas covered by FSA EMAS include the following:

• Service Area 1 – Integrated Technical Architecture (ITA): Build, integrate, maintain, manage, enhance, and/or migrate a common, shared platform of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products and services, including customized Reusable Common Services (RCS), that can be used by FSA applications, current and future.
• Service Area 2 – Enterprise Service Bus (ESB): Build, integrate, maintain, enhance, and/or migrate enterprise-wide application-messaging, web services, and application programming interface (API) capabilities for FSA applications.
• Service Area 3 – Cloud Services: Build, integrate, maintain, enhance, and/or migrate both Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings for providing shared technologies, including COTS products, to support FSA’s new business applications; deploy, operate, and maintain FSA technologies in the cloud (e.g., ITA and ESB); and integrate FSA technologies with legacy business applications, systems, and other Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings at FSA.

All necessary program management, quality assurance, architecture management, IT compliance, change management, release and deployment management, disaster recovery, capacity planning, evergreening management, incident management and problem resolution, security, enterprise performance testing, subject matter expertise, and ancillary support are considered in scope for the contract.

Features

• Facilitates continued, comprehensive, and effective operation of integrated sets of middleware functions at FSA
• Aligns FSA services with FSA’s Next Gen initiative to modernize technical and operational architecture
• Defines small pool of pre-qualified vendors from which to solicit EMAS services over a ten-year ordering period

Benefits

• Helps meet small business goals, as the IDIQ is a small business set-aside under NAICS Code 541519, Other Computer Related Services
• Facilitates faster ordering, as government only needs to solicit task order bids from three pre-qualified vendors
• Allows for long-term use, as the IDIQ ordering period spans ten years